Are you looking for a (relatively) quick-to-make, patriotic-themed dessert for the holiday? Do you want to channel your inner Martha Stewart, albeit with a few hacks? Try my star-spangled pie. This is cherry, but you could make it with your favorite fruit. It doesn’t take much time to prepare (if you buy pre-packaged crust), but you’ll nonetheless earn your Suzie Homemaker bona fides with this creative pie recipe!
I riffed on the one here.
Ingredients:
- Pie crusts from the refrigerated section of grocery store (I used Pillsbury). Make sure it’s the kind you unroll.
- 5 cups sweet cherries, pitted (one bag of Bing cherries worked)
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- 4 Tbsp cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons of butter, cut into small pieces
- 1 egg
- Coarse sugar for sprinkling—get gold sugar from bakery section
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Pit the cherries and toss with the next four ingredients. Regarding the sugar levels, I used ½ c. sugar and it was too sweet for my tastes, which is I recommend reducing to 1/3 c. Bing cherries are already quite sweet. However, adjust to your preference. Let the cherries sit so the juices have a chance to separate.
- Unroll one refrigerated pie crust and put into a glass pie pan. Fit it to the edges and cut off any extra around the sides. Put it back in the fridge.
- Unroll the other pie crust onto a sheet of parchment paper. Use a star-shaped cookie cutter to cut out stars for the top of the pie. Keep in mind that you might have to use a rolling pin to flatten the excess dough to get as many stars as needed.
- Use a slotted spoon to scoop the cherries into the pie pan. Leave the excess liquid behind (or you’ll get a runny pie!).
- Put a few pads of butter on top of the cherries.
- Arrange the stars on top of the cherries.
- Brush the stars and sides of the crust with egg wash (use a pastry brush or one for barbecue sauce). Then sprinkle on the gold sugar.
- Refrigerate pie for 30 minutes (though I forgot to do this, and it was fine).
- Bake at 425 for ten minutes. Then reduce heat to 350 for another 40-50 minutes. It’s done when the crust is nicely browned. (You might need to cover the edges of the pie with tin foil if they’re looking too dark.)